Christmas Dinner in Provence

Raspberries, hazelnuts, verbena: original ingredients for a Christmas dinner. Here, the chef David Arcos of the restaurant Bonheur Fou in Manosque shares four recipes that will surprise your nearest and dearest. Dinner is served!

From the beginning David Arcos states the spirit of his menu: “I want people to be able to prepare a complete meal with the same ingredients from the aperitif to dessert”. This cook-adventurer who today runs the restaurant Bonheur Fou in Manosque is what is known as a locavore: he uses only local produce selected at markets in his cooking for a simple, refined and accessible cuisine. Here’s what David Arcos has created for us around the Provencal ingredients of raspberries, hazelnuts, verbena and lavender honey. Wood and autumn scents emerge from the kitchen as David prepares his original dishes: to start, the chef prepares us a cocktail subtly combining verbena and raspberry. Next, a slice of bread with goat cheese and honey and hazelnuts that is thrown together in a few minutes at most, immediately followed by the juicy duck breast and raspberry. And to finish on a sweet note, David pulls out a hazelnut biscuit shiny with honey and dressed with a few raspberries enhanced with fresh verbena leaves picked that very morning. A festive and elegant meal, as pretty as it is tasty.

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